AMERICAN HISTORY ESSAY CONTEST

2009–2010 Topic:

Describe how you felt on May 10, 1869, when the golden spike was driven at Promontory Summit, Utah, to celebrate the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad. Pretend you are a settler planning to use the train to travel to your new home in the West, an Irish or Chinese worker who helped build the line, or a Native American whose way of life was greatly affected by the railroad.

Here is the PowerPoint presentation on Introductions

To assist you in your research for the DAR essay contest, here are a few links:

I have bookmarked a bunch of sites on my Delicious page, all of which are tagged with words related to this contest.

Additionally, the links below might help ...

http://tcrr.com/     General information on the Transcontinental Railroad

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/goldenspike.htm     Eyewitness account at Promontory Summit

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/tcrr/peopleevents/p_cprr.html     Workers--Irish and Chinese

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/tcrr/sfeature/sf_interview.html Effect on Native Americans

http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist1/rail.html     General information

http://bushong.net/dawn/about/college/ids100/workers.shtml     Chinese workers

http://americanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa120101a.htm     Chinese workers

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/lesson_plans/railroad_handout_3.html     Chinese workers

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/lesson_plans/railroad_handout_2.html         Settlers

http://www.nps.gov/archive/gosp/history/Native_American_RR.html Essay: Native Americans and the Railroad

This pdf explains all the criteria for submitting your essay to the contest. Our sponsoring chapter is the Skokie Valley Chapter.